But I don’t
believe we will be able to successfully prevent suicide until we learn to talk
about it. No one wants to admit to thinking about suicide and that’s in spite
of the fact that between 10-14 percent of
the general population has considered it. That’s more than one-in-ten
people that have contemplated something that we can’t bring ourselves to talk
about.

And this shrouds
suicide in a cloak of secrecy and ignorance. After all, it’s hard to be
informed about a subject that people refuse to mention.

Why People Don’t Want to Talk About Suicide

People have
logical reasons as to why they don’t want to talk about suicide. First off, no
one likes to think about death and people certainly don’t like to think about
the death of loved ones. That’s understandable. It’s the same reason people
don’t talk about headstones, epitaphs and caskets. I get that, it’s morbid and
sad, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth facing.

And unlike
headstones, epitaphs and caskets, which people do often finally deal with in
the late stages of life, there is no “appropriate” stage of life to talk about
suicide. If there were a stage, it would be during childhood as that’s when
some people start thinking about suicide.

People also have
this illogical notion that if they ignore suicide the problem will go away, or
at the very least, it won’t touch them. But this train of thought is similar to
the idea that if we don’t talk about cancer, it will go away. With suicide
being the 10th leading cause of death overall and the third leading cause of death in people between the ages of 15 to 24
in the United States, the fact is, if suicide hasn’t touched your life already,
at some point, it will.

Our Silence is Costing Lives

So when a person
faces thoughts of suicide they feel alone and feel there is no one they can
talk to as they can’t overcome the taboo and shame that is driving the silence.
This feeling of loneliness and not knowing where to turn can easily grow a
suicidal thought into an attempt or even a suicide completion. Our own fear of
the word “suicide” contributes to taking lives.

Talking About Suicide

But suicide doesn’t
have to be taboo. Suicide doesn’t have to be a secret. Suicide doesn’t have to
be a battle fought in the dark.

We tackle other
topics like addiction, depression, contraception and cancer to help protect us
and keep us healthy. And now it’s time we tackle suicide for the same reason;
because using the silence approach isn’t working. Using the head-in-the-sand in
the approach is costing tens-of-thousands of lives per year. Relying on
ignorance to keep us safe is a myth.

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